


may you dance often

by stormwarnings



Series: whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anger, Character Study, Multi, eldritch peredhel, idfk its too early i had to be up five hours ago and its not even ten am, prose, so here we go, subtly referenced donna tartt, well luthiens not a peredhel but she is the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26284918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormwarnings/pseuds/stormwarnings
Summary: and perhaps luthien is lonely. perhaps it is a horrible existence, this strange state of being that is singular only to her. (and not in the history of arda is there another like her, is there? her descendants, so strange and so alien simply due to her blood, and perhaps it is good there is no others like her, perhaps then the world would have broken into pieces - )perhaps luthien is lonely, in her beauty and her dresses and her songs. but more than anything, she is angry.
Relationships: Beren Erchamion/Lúthien Tinúviel, Elu Thingol | Elwë Singollo/Melian
Series: whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868776
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29





	may you dance often

**Author's Note:**

> back on this bs

luthien is pretty. 

luthien is pretty, and beautiful, and her father’s lovely little star, and from the moment she is born, she is _pretty_. it’s a mantra they repeat to her, as they dress her in deep blues and royal purples and shimmering golds, as they braid back her hair and teach her to dance and teach her to sing. 

what nobody really remembers is that luthien came out of the womb _angry_. 

melian hadn’t had a child before. melian wasn’t an elf. melian carried her child for due time, and when she got bored of the pain and the frustration, she gave birth. so luthien came into the world kicking and screaming. she came into the world just like her mother. _ready to fight._

and halfway across the world, there’s an elf named feanor, named spirit of fire, and he too is born angry, and in this world of lovely things (the girdle around doriath, the calacirya past tirion) they are similar. not the same, but similar.

the difference is this - one of them is told _yes my son, may you live long and love fiercely, and may you fight for that which you must defend._ one of them is told _no my daughter, may you dance often and shine brightly, but these ways of ours are alien to your father and his people._

but both are told _your ways are not for us._

and perhaps luthien is lonely. perhaps it is a horrible existence, this strange state of being that is singular only to her. (and not in the history of arda is there another like her, is there? her descendants, so odd and so strange simply due to her blood, _and perhaps it is good there is no others like her, perhaps then the world would have broken into pieces -_ )

perhaps luthien is lonely, in her beauty and her dresses and her songs. but more than anything, she is angry. 

because this blood that she carries. it is not that of the second children (though her descendants, with their thrice-cursed lineage, they are another tale) and it is barely that of the first. it is that of stars, of dreams, of sparkling skins that shift like the heat that ripples off the fire, and luthien is a small child and she has to hold it all in like a raging inferno - 

luthien does not tell her mother of her dreams: of gull feathers, of a hidden city burning to the ground, of jewels so bright they defy possibility, of twins drifting through the wood and twins drifting through blood and twins drifting through the wood and two girls with her face, and a voice cold and dark and ancient -

melian says _you must hide it. they are not like you. you are one of a kind. you must hide it._ melian knew dreams. melian knew enchantment. melian knew how to hold it all in. luthien doesn’t. _too many teeth, too many eyes, proportions put together all wrong because she doesn’t know how to be this kind of existence. all this anger. all these teeth. what does that make her._

what does that make her.

feanor dies on these shores. luthien doesn’t. everyone dies, on these shores, and luthien doesn’t. they fight battles, and luthien does not leave the girdle, but something starts flickering under her skin, all incandescent and familiar. luthien laughs. 

luthien meets a mortal man.

theirs will be a story for the ages, she knows. beren looks her in the eyes and says _i am not afraid of what you are._ luthien tells him _you should be_. beren shakes his head. _you are far too beautiful to limit yourself, my lady._

and what can luthien say to that?

they send beren to find the silmaril, and send him away, and melian says to luthien _he is no match for you, my love. did he not faint away from your might? did i not tell you?_

_you must hide it._

luthien leaves. theirs is a story for the ages.

luthien remembers the beautiful fragility of her mortal love - how unafraid he was to spit in the face of terror, how unafraid he was to _die_. luthien remembers the beautiful fragility of his face when he did not falter before her. luthien laughs at celegorm and curufin and hopes they hear how her voice breaks in seven; hopes they see how her nails are also claws. luthien and huan rescue beren, and then they set off for angband, and when they come across the enemy, the great darkness of the north -

luthien sings him to sleep. _he sees a mortal man and a shining girl-child, and he steps down from his throne, and that is his first mistake._

they cut a silmaril from his crown. theirs will never be a twice-done feat. it is only this once. the jewels are so bright they blind, and for a moment luthien in her exhaustion sees the carnage, sees the blood, _and had she more strength, perhaps she would have destroyed them then and there._

but that is not how stories go.

it is said that theirs is a romance and a tragedy, an epic and a song. beren dies, and luthien faces mandos himself, and in all her fury and fire, beren is returned to her, and she is made mortal. they carry the silmaril, and they live happily, and the stories will not remember the most about luthien. _will not remember the wings, will not remember the sorrow in melian’s eyes, will not remember how luthien bled light and cried blood, will not remember the screams she woke beren with, every night._

luthien is pretty. 

_celebrimbor never met luthien. perhaps if he had, he would have held more wariness towards beautiful annatar. they were too similar, and when annatar finally shed his form and celebrimbor knew him to be sauron, he understood this truth that was at the very heart of luthien’s being -_

anger is beauty. beauty is terror. and terror is simply that which one does not know.

**Author's Note:**

> hope that was enjoyed :)
> 
> (also on [tumblr](https://stormwarnings.tumblr.com/))


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